{"id":313,"date":"2005-04-21T18:44:00","date_gmt":"2005-04-21T22:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/?p=313"},"modified":"2005-04-21T18:44:00","modified_gmt":"2005-04-21T22:44:00","slug":"313","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/?p=313","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

State of the Disunion Address<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

4:55 pm: I check the TV Times to see my viewing options: it\u2019s basically between Everybody Loves Raymond and Everybody Hates Liberals\u2026I guess I\u2019ll give Paul a chance.<\/p>\n

Round 1<\/strong>
5:02 pm:<\/strong> \u201cThis occurred under a Liberal government<\/em>\u201d, \u201cunjustifiable mess<\/em>\u201d, \u201cI will be politically accountable<\/em>\u201d\u2026boy, Harper\u2019s going to have a tough time toping this.<\/p>\n

5:03 pm: Paul says \u201cI\u2019m sorry\u201d. Good move.<\/p>\n

5:08 pm: Gomery will report December 15th\u2026an election within 30 days means a January call for a February vote. So Martin’s begging for close to a year \u2013 that\u2019s a long time in minority government politics.<\/p>\n

5:09 pm: The camera slowly zooms in as Paul Martin talks about his father being in Cabinet. I think this election might mark the first time in the history of Canadian politics that a politician will be playing for \u201cpity votes\u201d.<\/p>\n

Analysis of Paul<\/strong>: Good performance. I strongly disagree with Paul Wells <\/a>that this challenge will work, but it gives the Liberals a campaign “issue”. They can get up and say \u201cStephen Harper didn\u2019t let Judge Gomery report<\/em>\u201d. Martin\u2019s always good on a prepared texts and he\u2019s got that Uncle Louis vibe to him\u2026very strong performance, as expected.<\/p>\n

Round 2<\/strong>
5:10 pm: Harper comes out swinging. I still can\u2019t get over how confident this guy has looked over the past two weeks. He bluntly says that Prime Ministers do not go on national TV \u201cbegging for yet another chance<\/em>\u201d and that \u201cthis is not how a Prime Minister should act<\/em>.\u201d Like I predicted<\/a>, Harper is trying to look like a Prime Minister and is succeeding.<\/p>\n

5:11 pm: Mentions the Liberals shutting down the Public Accounts Committee last year\u2026expect to hear a lot of that during the election. Also mentions the \u201cfiscal imbalance\u201d during his French speech.<\/p>\n

5:15 pm: The guy is really playing to Quebec voters. Lots of French and he spends the last half of his speech talking about La Belle Province.<\/p>\n

5:16 pm: The \u201ccorruption\u201d counter hits 7. I\u2019m disappointed in Steve \u2013 he\u2019s well bellow his usual 2.5 CRpM ratio (corruption references per minute).<\/p>\n

Analysis of Steve<\/strong>: Looked really good and hammered home the key points. Kept bobbing back and forth which was kind of annoying \u2013 I don\u2019t want to sound like his mother but the guy needs to work on his posture.<\/p>\n

Round 3<\/strong>
5:18 pm: (NOTE: I didn\u2019t actually keep track on the times – I\u2019m pretty much making them up<\/em>\u2026) Opens by saying that when Jean Chretien addressed the country in 1995 \u201che did so to save Canada\u201d. Seriously. I think that\u2019s the most (only) shocking thing anyone said during the half-hour.<\/p>\n

5:20 pm: The CBC translator translates Ducceppe\u2019s statement into \u201cbesmirched Democracy\u201d. This girl deserves a raise\u2026besmirched isn\u2019t an easy word to pull out.<\/p>\n

5:22 pm: I don\u2019t know who Ducceppe\u2019s English coach is but he\u2019s talking in this drawn out Texas drawl: \u201cfe-dee-rawl-ism\u201d.<\/p>\n

Analysis of Gilles<\/strong>: Playing up the separatist angle a lot in his speech. Also trying to draw Martin into it as best he can with the \u201cyou were Minister of Finance when this happened\u201d line.<\/p>\n

Round 4<\/strong>
5:25 pm: Jack Layton echoes the opposition leaders by saying \u201cthis is not a national crisis<\/em>.\u201d This is probably the first time in the history of politics that the opposition is trying to downplay a scandal.<\/p>\n

5:26 pm: Jack refuses to talk about the scandal and is instead discussing issues<\/em>. ISSUES<\/strong><\/em>? Who does this guy think he is? That\u2019s it, I\u2019m changing channels.<\/p>\n

5:27 pm: Ha ha ha. Oh, that Raymond<\/a>. When will he ever learn\u2026<\/p>\n

Analysis of Jack<\/strong>: In all seriousness, he was the best of the bunch. Actually talked about the issues and making Parliament work. The NDP base soaks up stuff like that. The commentators spent as much time talking about Layton\u2019s offer to modify the budget as they did about Martin\u2019s offer to call an election in January. This NDP ploy could backfire, but I really like the way Layton is approaching this. Play the good cop in the \u201cgood cop\/bad cop\/separatist cop\u201d routine with Harper and Ducceppe.<\/p>\n

Post-Game Show:<\/strong>
-The CBC shows us George Strombalopalopalopapoulos talking to Canadians instead of the opposition leaders\u2019 scrum. Thanks a lot. I really care what Angie in Vancouver has to say more than Stephen Harper.
-Way to win over the BC voters with a 4 pm Press Conference Paul.
-The local CBC news shows this blog on their newscast. Cool.
-Allan Gregg hits it right on the money when he says Martin continues to help his popularity at the expense of the Liberal brand.<\/p>\n

Basically, I don\u2019t think this will make a huge difference. Everyone rehashed what they\u2019ve been saying for the past few weeks. Martin looked really good, but he was followed up by half an hour of opposition leaders who also looked good bashing him. Still, he\u2019ll get most of the media clips so it was likely worth the risk. I\u2019ll be very curious to see if this has any real impact on voters \u2013 my gut tells me no, but we\u2019ll see.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

State of the Disunion Address 4:55 pm: I check the TV Times to see my viewing options: it\u2019s basically between Everybody Loves Raymond and Everybody Hates Liberals\u2026I guess I\u2019ll give Paul a chance. Round 15:02 pm: \u201cThis occurred under a Liberal government\u201d, \u201cunjustifiable mess\u201d, \u201cI will be politically accountable\u201d\u2026boy, Harper\u2019s going to have a tough […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=313"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}